YowCH & Grace

We cooked some simple dinner at home on Wednesday, 4 Mar:

Esther got herself a guitar looping pedal. This allows several tracks to be recorded and looped (played round after round) to have layered (multi-track) playing. $200, second-hand from Esther’s friend.

The steering wheel cover for the car is all cracked up and loose after 3.5 years. So we bought a replacement, exact same model.

Our church gave out 3 nails for the season of Lent, as a reminder of Christ’s suffering for our sins. We are free to use the nails in whichever way, and most people glues them together to make a cross. Joseph did this:

It is nice and cool, but too dangerous, so after taking photo, he took off the nails.

On Sunday night, we watched Robin Hood (2018) with Taron Egerton and Jamie Foxx, in our bedroom because the blu-ray disc can’t play on the living room player.

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YowCH’s favourite fruit, ciku (sapodilla in English). Grace bought a few large ones, sweet and fragrant.

Driving the Kallang-Pay Lebar Expressway (KPE) is very fuel efficient, having speed limit of 70-80km/h and smooth flowing traffic most of the time. Able to get 11.8km/L over a distance of 130km.

As a reward for Samuel’s good swim, we had dinner at Handlebar. Samuel shared a large platter, and then fell asleep.

Grace bought a serger on Saturday, 29 Feb 2020 before church. This machine is for sewing the edge of cloth. A good partner for the sewing machine. She can now have trimmed edges for the clothes or bags that she makes.

On Sunday, we had our swim followed by chicken rice for lunch.

Football training in the afternoon after a few week’s break, and Samuel did well at football, being very enthusiastic and active.

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Samuel took his Swimsafer 2.0 Bronze level exam on Sunday afternoon, after our regular weekly swim. He was the smallest size taking the exam (probably one of the youngest). Most are actually taking Stage 3, with 3 taking Bronze. Samuel took his Stage 3 recently on 17 Nov 2019.

First to take an on-line multiple choice questions text. Then swim survival-backstroke, survival-sidestroke, back-stroke, freestyle and breaststroke, each for 1 minute. Wear float in the water, take off T-shirt and shorts while in the water and to thread water for 2 minutes.


Francis (our coach) was present, too. Tobby was the examiner.

The Bronze cert:

In the morning, Grace swam 20 laps continuously, YowCH did 10 (freestyle) in 17m40s (5 secs faster than last week), while the children did resistance training. We ordered lunch from Kay Lim to eat before Samuel’s exam.

In the evening, we visited the Yongs, and had dinner together. We brought along spam-fries and maoshanwang durians.

After dinner, we enjoyed gin-rummy:

UPDATE 01 March 2020: Here is Samuel with Coach Francis and the certificate:

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We had one more niangao which we sliced it up, battered and fried. The children loved it.

On 14 Feb 2020, YowCH and Grace had a lunch at Handlebar. Rather fun.

We cooked simple dinner on Sunday night (16 Feb), wantonmee which we bought in PJ. We used meatballs, eggs and abalone-soup!

On Tuesday, 18 Feb, YowCH had another review and the doctor continued the Micardis Plus 40/12.5 daily for the next 2 months.

Joseph’s cast was removed on 13 Feb 2020, after review and x-ray by the doctor.

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Some miscellaneous stuff:

Esther at piano class:

The Odyssey can actually be driven very economically (on the 70-80km/h KPE, Kallang – Paya Lebar Expressway). Managed to clock 16.7km/L over a distance of 47km in smooth traffic.

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We had dinner with the Lims on Saturday night (15th of CNY) at Putien Vivocity. Due to COVID-19, the carpark was rather empty and the restaurants had no queue.

The pool on Sunday was also very empty.

Our lunch after swim with Cheng Siang and coaches Francis and Tobby.

And dinner at Jollibee.

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YowCH’s high blood pressure medication increased after 14 days with review from his doctor. He now take Micardis which is the same Telmisartan 40mg as before, but with Hydrochrolothiazide 12.5mg added. Started on 5 Feb 2020.

YowCH ordered a Marantz SR5013 receiver/amplifier from Lazada last week. The model is a few years old and shops doesn’t seem to carry it. This is to replace the Denon 1708 which we have been using since start of 2008, and is very sickly already. This Marantz SR5013 still has analogue 7.1 input, which is great for playing back SACD.

Then we found out that the Velodyne CHT8R sub-woofer had no sound, so YowCH brought it to be checked and found that the circuit board is burnt, repair is $250 and not guaranteed to work, so we bought another sub-woofer, the Mirage MM8 with 3 speakers. Nice bass sound from a small sub-woofer, and with the low-frequency sounds of movies, our windows and walls rattle!

Grace was not working on Thursday, 6 Feb, so she made a caramel cheese cake for Beacon FG. We had our new-year meeting on Friday night, 7 Feb, where we tossed the lo-hei (also prepared by us, with abalone instead of fish).

Here’s a photo of Grace swimming. She has been swimming 20 laps a week recently.

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We got this from PJ, creamer and gula melaka in tubes! Very convenient.

This are screen captures of David in action playing basketball for his school in competition game. The video was taken by a parent who attended the game. Unfortunately, games will be postponed due to the nCoV virus pandemic. David is no. 7.



So, to help prevent spread of nCoV, masks are recommended.

YowCH bought cheap OEM air-filter to replace the very dirty one in the Odyssey. $16 per piece, better than originals at $80 each.

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Here are photos of Joseph and Samuel at ther piano class with D-flat Studio, Tanglin.

YowCH has been running 3x 2.5km weekly, and going fast. On 1 Feb 2020, he had a fast run of finishing 2.5km in 12m05s.

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The car air-con broke down when we went on our trip to PJ for CNY. We sent the car to the workshop for repairs once we returned to Singapore. So o Wednesday morning, Joseph and Samuel walked to school while YowCH walked to work.


Esther, David and Grace took bus to school/work.

Here are some TVB wuxia series that we have watched (except for The Duke of Mount Deer, 鹿鼎記, which we just started watching).
Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils, 天龍八部
The Return of the Condor Heroes, 神鵰俠侶

New Heavenly Sword and Dragon Sabre, 倚天屠龍記
The Duke of Mount Deer, 鹿鼎記

We have posted The Legend of the Condor Heroes, 射鵰英雄傳 earlier.

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